AND THEN TO DOUBT.
“I believe,” said Aunt Jane, “that one of the numerous causes of doubt
in the truth of Revelation is that we have difficulty in realising the
idea of a continuity of perfect happiness. The capacity for joy in some
natures is so infinite, yet it is so seldom realised, that we are almost
unable to contemplate its fulfilment. Moderate or equally-toned minds
can more easily imagine the continuity of the degree of happiness they
often, perhaps generally, experience, and, therefore, they seem to be
better Christians.”
“Very likely,” said I, “and the music I often hear in my ears is more
beautiful than any I ever heard in reality; and the happiness I
sometimes causelessly feel is so far beyond my usually depressed
sensations, that I have the greatest difficulty in believing that I can
ever attain a permanence of such heavenly joy--still less do I feel
worthy ever to enjoy it.”
“The strongest natural or internal evidence of the existence and
superintendence of a loving God,” said Aunt Jane--“the Being whom
Scriptures describe as knowing the very number of the hairs of our
head--is the feeling of repose and confidence we sometimes have of
being thus cared for at those moments when the world and our best
friends seem to desert us, or when we lose them by death or separation.
Thank God, I have often been blessed with this apparently miraculous
peace and confidence in the existence and goodness of my Maker.
Gratitude is the most natural source of love. We cannot love God with
all our hearts, as we are commanded to do, unless we feel grateful to
Him, and we cannot feel grateful if we allow ourselves to imagine that
we deserved more happiness or pleasure than we got. It is imperative to
be humble and cheerful, if we wish to love God, or even to believe in
Him. No person who indulges in pride and discontent _can_ do so.
Nothing,” continued Aunt Jane, after a pause, “preserves us so well
from the self-pity, which is often our most depressing misery, as a
thorough consciousness of our own unworthiness. It is only when we
indulge in a feeling of self-righteousness, such as, ‘Lord, I thank Thee
that I am not such as these,’ &c. It is then we most feel the injuries
which circumstances, or ill-natured or stupid people, have made us
suffer. There is a degree of happiness in thorough humility--_i.e._,
consciousness of sin and error--which I believe many people are not
cognizant of; it mitigates the agony of those bitter tears which we
allow ourselves to shed when we are ill-treated, and believe we have not
deserved the apparent unkindness or ingratitude of friends, or the
slights and neglects of those we love. Remorse is a sad suffering, but
an absence of it, which leads to self-elation under injustice, is sadder
still.”
“Surely,” I said, “unbelief cannot proceed from pride in me? Surely it
is that I cannot feel worthy of such great good--such a blessing as
eternal spiritual happiness! Oh! how have I prayed to some unseen Power
that I might be enabled to see daylight and belief in Revelation.
Unceasingly, day and night, and even in my sleep, I sometimes awake
suddenly, clasping my hands, and crying in agony for help in my
unbelief. It is impossible that pride can prevent my belief,
pride--which is certainly often the cause of doubt and rejection of
Scripture. Yes, I am full of humility; but that is because I am really
bad--thoroughly so. When I look back at all the wrong things I have
done, I am quite horrified! Now, I love Norah,” I continued, “chiefly
because she is so humble, and because humility is beautiful. It commands
admiration. It must be pleasant to see and hear persons who love, or
revere, or look up to something ‘better than themselves,’ rather than to
see persons who consider themselves the best that can exist. Therefore
religious, and even superstitious people are more to be admired than
infidel independent ones. I am afraid the excessive tolerance of my
father, and the rather silly superstition of my mother, made me too
indifferent, in years gone by, to all religion. I shrank from the
subject.”
“Those,” replied Aunt Jane, “who are, like Norah, endowed with a natural
spirit of harmony, can understand the Christian religion and the
Scriptures, even without the aid of either tradition or the teachings of
a visible church. The most harmonious Pagan minds whose works have come
down to us have been actuated by this truly harmonious spirit. Plato had
it in such a high degree that he seemed to have a foretaste of the real
doctrines of Scripture, and of the consequent necessity for the
Atonement. To those who have not this spirit of harmony the Scripture
becomes as discordant and unintelligible as the musical scales do to
those bad players who have no musical ear, and consequently make
discords: and jumbling, horrible sounds are all they can draw forth.
Probably my spirit of harmony led me to imagine that some can attain
goodness even without the teaching of the visible Church.”
“Ah! I see what you mean,” I replied. “In meditating on harmony, one
certainly finds help to belief.”
“Another ray of hope you will find,” she continued, “by reasoning from
the analogy of society. I mean that, when we are in the company of
strangers, it is certainly better taste to judge of or speak to them
with the kind courtesy which ‘hopeth all things,’ which expects to find
some good in them rather than evil. Should some of them even have bad
countenances, it is better--better even for those who are not thinking
or acting on Christian precepts. It shows better feeling to be kind, and
wish, at all events, to discover some good in them. I suppose confirmed
infidels or unbelievers would agree with me on this point, because they
must probably wish for good instead of evil in their fellow-creatures.
Well, on reasoning from analogy, is it not better to think that some
good design for our future happiness causes the apparent state of
present misery which the majority of mankind suffer--to think that there
is a Being who wishes us well? Is this not more likely than their idea
that chance, or what they call the Laws of Nature, caused this present
suffering in human nature; which of course they must think perfectly
useless, unless it tends to some future good to each suffering
individual. Does not analogy as well as common sense point towards a
superintending Creator, who allows us to suffer and choose our own
future lot of endless happiness or misery? We _must_ suppose either the
one or the other, that the suffering of this world was given to purify
us, and increase our eternal happiness; _or_ that everything has created
itself, for the sole purpose of tending to decay, and developing a set
of beings which must necessarily suffer in proportion to the increased
power and perfection of their nature; for no one can deny that the more
intellectual and perfect human nature becomes, the more it _must_ crave
for a continuance of happiness, the more its greatest minds must wish
for the intellectual enjoyments, unshackled by the necessary sufferings
of its body. No one can say that the human body is less liable to
suffering than it was in the early periods of the world; on the
contrary, it always seems much more liable to suffering in proportion
to its greater intellectual development, then as now.”